“I CHOSE YOU!”

 

John 15:16-17                 (ESV)

“[16] You DID NOT choose ME, but “I CHOSE YOU” and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the FATHER in MY NAME, HE may give it to you. [17] These things I command you, SO THAT YOU LOVE ONE ANOTHER..”

Ephesians 1:3-4                 (ESV)

Spiritual Blessings in CHRIST 

“[3] Blessed be the GOD and FATHER of our LORD JESUS CHRIST, WHO has blessed us in CHRIST with every SPIRITUAL BLESSING in the heavenly places, [4] even as “HE CHOSE US” IN HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD, that we should be HOLY and BLAMELESS before HIM.”  

While JESUS displayed HIS LOVINGKINDNESS by coming to earth to purchase salvation for “the world” (John 3:16), HE ALREADY KNEW WHO was going to COME TO HIM (Matthew 11:28) as “HE CHOSE US” IN HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD (Ephesians 1:4)!!!  In John 15:16, JESUS HIMSELF spoke these WORDS, “You DID NOT choose ME, but “I CHOSE YOU” and appointed you…”!  The Apostle Paul was on the road to Damascus TO ARREST BELIEVERS when JESUS ENCOUNTERED him AND CHANGED him!!!

This CHANGE was made ABUNDANTLY CLEAR to me following the Brain Hemorrhage in July of 2007.  Doctors “initially” projected that I would be OUT OF the hospital in a week??  However I was released to go to the Rehabilitation Hospital precisely 31 days later!!!  Seventeen days of that I was in a drug-induced coma!!!  Even after I was brought out of the coma, I had NO ABILITY carry on a conversation nor reason about anything!  I didn’t understand what I had been through, but I KNEW that it was LIFE CHANGING!!!

Although I was a Believer at the time of the Brain Hemorrhage, my Spiritual walk was definitely moving too quickly to be USED by HIM ……. AND FOR HIS GLORY!  But JESUS didn’t require me to go to a Spiritual seminar, or anything similar.  HE SIMPLY stated “BE STILL, AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD”!!!

 

“HE CHOSE US (me!) IN HIM BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD”, long before I was even born!!!  HE even used my failures in life FOR HIS GLORY to make a vessel FOR HJS GLORY (Romans 8:28; 2 Corinthians 12:9).  

My “failures”, even the sins that I STILL commit, were GRACIOUSLY paid for by the Sacrifice of JESUS!  I DON’T DESERVE IT, but JESUS PAID IT ALL for me!!!  Our CREATOR SPOKE “I CHOSE YOU” over 2,000 years ago, but HE made that decision BEFORE THE FOUNDATION OF THE WORLD!!!